LEND A HAND: Family struggles on one income

When one of Olive’s twin boys was born with spina bifida, her doctors expected the worst. Now Jesse is working toward walking someday. But with only one income, from Olive’s husband, money is tight.

allison manning

One in a series of stories chronicling the needs of South Shore residents who will benefit from The Patriot Ledger's Lend a Hand holiday fundraising campaign.

When doctors told Olive in her fourth month of pregnancy that one of her twin boys had spina bifida, she asked for a pill or some way to fix it. Doctors said there is no cure for the birth defect, which would leave her baby boy with a hole in his spine and the possibility of a slew of other complications.

More than two years later, Jesse rocks on the floor, uses the power of his upper body to army crawl after his brother and is in every way a normal 16-month-old, despite his multiple surgeries, shunt in his brain to drain excess fluid and his inability to walk and run like his brother, John.

Doctors are amazed at his progress, though they aren’t sure if he will be able to ever match his brother physically.

“I’m waiting for him to walk,” said Olive, who emigrated from Cameroon with her husband in 2002. “We know he’s going to walk.”

But even though Jesse is performing far better than his doctors expected, he still needs constant care. Olive and her husband are living only on his social worker’s salary. Olive quit her job as a certified nurse’s assistant to care for the boys full-time, coordinating Jesse’s doctor’s appointments and four days a week of at-home visits, including music, physical therapy, a visiting nurse from South Shore Mental Health and occupational therapy.

“God knows best,” Olive said. “If he gave me this child, he knows how to fix it.”

When Jesse was 8 months old, she noticed swelling and irritability in him, leading to another surgery and a replacement shunt in his brain.

But being at home means living on one income, with little other assistance. Two boys means double the diapers, food and clothing.

She said she’s switched from Pampers to cheaper diapers, giving up some of her own creature comforts to make sure her sons always have what they need.

“It’s a lot of diapers for two babies,” she said. “They grow so fast.”

And though she’s never cut hair, she’s learned how to trim her boys’ curls.

Twins, especially one with special needs, means double the amount of energy spent each day. The boys crawl over their mother, wanting her full attention, until she finally scoops them up, one in each arm as she talks. She said she often lets the boys nap on her bed with her, one tucked under each arm.

Because Olive doesn’t see Jesse as disabled, she declines Social Security.

“I don’t want him feeling like less than anyone else,” she said as her boys, dressed in identical outfits, played in front of her. “In my mind, he’s not disabled. He’s able.”

In most cases, the names of Lend a Hand recipients have been changed to protect their privacy.